The Simeon Mills House is an Italianate-style farmhouse-mansion built in 1863 on the east side of

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is the List of municipalities in Wisconsin by population, second-most populous city in the state, with a population of 269,840 at the 2020 Uni ...

for Mills, an early settler, businessman and prominent civic leader. In 1987 this, his country house, was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

History

Simeon Mills Simeon Mills (February 14, 1810 – June 1, 1895) was a Democratic member of the Wisconsin State Senate from Dane County in the 1st Wisconsin Legislature. He introduced the bill which became the charter for the University of Wisconsin. Biogr ...

was born in 1810 in Connecticut, and grew up in Ohio. In 1835 the young man came to the frontier that would become Wisconsin and was at Belmont in 1836 for the establishment of

Wisconsin Territory The Territory of Wisconsin was an organized and incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 3, 1836, until May 29, 1848, when an eastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Wisconsin. Belm ...

. In 1837, he built a log cabin and opened a small grocery store in what would become Madison, With . years before Madison was incorporated as even a village. That grocery store was the first of many business ventures for Mills. He was an early speculator in real estate, and successful. He was the first president of the Bank of Madison and of Madison Mutual Insurance Company. He served on the board of Madison Gas, Light & Coke Co. He was a partner in the ''Argus'', Madison's first newspaper. He was president of the Madison and Portage Railroad and director of the Beloit and Madison Railroad. Through these years he also served the public in various roles. He was the first mail carrier between Madison and Milwaukee, making that trip twice a week from 1837 to 1842. He was also the first justice of the peace. He served as village trustee, village treasurer, and on Madison's first Board of Education. He was one of Dane County's first county commissioners, and Dane County's first

State Senator A state senator is a member of a State legislature (United States), state's senate in the bicameral legislature of 49 U.S. states, or a member of the unicameral Nebraska Legislature. History There are typically fewer state senators than there ...

. In that role, he played a key role in founding the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

, and he served as one of the UW's first regents. During the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

, Governor Randall put Mills in charge of recruiting volunteers across Wisconsin for the Union Army. Mills had four homes around Madison over the years. By 1863, the family was living in a city home at the corner of Main and Monona Ave. Mills also owned 180 acres two miles away on the northeast end of the isthmus. He decided to build a country estate in the then-rural area. The house stands two stories, clad in brown sandstone. The style is

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century It ...

which was fashionable at the time. Hallmarks of the style are the low-pitched roof with wide

eaves The eaves are the edges of the roof which overhang the face of a wall and, normally, project beyond the side of a building. The eaves form an overhang to throw water clear of the walls and may be highly decorated as part of an architectural sty ...

, the double brackets supporting the eaves, and the protruding mouldings sheltering the windows. First-story windows are rectangular and the second are round-topped. This particular example has eaves that are heavier than most. Mills called the house ''Elmside'', but local wags dubbed it "Mills Folly," because it was far from his interests downtown. Indeed, the mills family lived there only five years. Later occupants were J.W. Hudson, an industrialist and real estate promoter, and Sam Miller, an opera and theater promoter. The house was listed on the

in 1987 and on the State Register of Historic Places in 1989.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mills Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places in Madison, Wisconsin Houses in Madison, Wisconsin Italianate architecture in Wisconsin Brick buildings and structures in Wisconsin Houses completed in 1863